Like a jigsaw puzzle, the structure of a cast can conform to rigid patterns. In the first post this was made evident with the brains/brawns dynamic shown by Ichigo-Uryuu and Mugen-Jin. In other action shows, however, the brains/brawn duo isn’t a necessity, and a binary will materialize in a different form, like Goku-Vegeta, who make up an interesting social class binary that is constantly emphasized by a sort of racial liberalism/conservatism (Goku saves humanity while ignoring his Saiyan ancestry while Vegeta always fights for Saiyan pride). In this installment, I’m basically going to look briefly at instances where the drive of a show is produced by the conflict of two lead characters. These two leads constitute the “lead paradigm” which must usually fit a binary, hence lead paradigm binary.
The lead paradigm binary stretches far. Yuji-Marlene, Lelouch-Suzaku, Chikane-Himeko, Haruka-Hayase, Fujiki-Irako, Yang-Reinhard[1], Kira-L, and so forth. In these instances, the progression of the show is fueled mainly by the ideological conflict generated by the lead paradigm binary, with “third party” instigators contributing to other events with which the lead binary must negotiate. Sometimes that ideological conflict is turned on its head or even abolished in a series of massive plot twists that completely reconfigure the ideological motivations of the lead characters or show in general. Geass is interesting in this respect because both Lelouch and Suzaku wanted to change society, the former by revolution and the latter by reformation “within the system”. Then Suzaku went crazy and so he ended up dissenting against the military and political system he originally fought for in favor of Lelouch’s “everyone hate me now” strategy.
While the lead paradigm binary usually takes place between people, other cases that aren’t restricted to lead characters involve split or dual personality or even schizophrenia. These cinematic devices almost always polarize opposing mentalities: Negishi-Krauser, Allelujah-Hallelujah, Marie-Soma, possibly Takumi-Shogun or whatever the mystery turns out to be, Afro-Ninja (imaginary friends count too).[2] Because we love coining jargon all the time, the instance of schizophrenia or related conditions could be labeled intra-paradigmatic since they occur within the same character, or paradigm, within the cast structure.
As per the concepts developed in parts I-III, lead binaries not restricted to one character (inter-paradigmatic!) can be expressed in terms of appearance, personality or, most importantly, ideology:
Yes, those pictures are absolutely appropriate and relevant
Light-dark hair is the salient visual clue here; hair is usually a definitive visual characteristic that is the only way of distinguishing between characters (ie. Key adaptation girls). However, I don’t think that their placement in the anime is dependant entirely upon their appearance – it’s more like an ideological paradigm is required for the drive of the show to function, and so appearance is icing on the cake. It’s largely superfluous, but helps to emphasize, by what you can see, precisely those things you cannot see. This is also buttressed by Chikane’s penitence. The ideology she represents inverts itself yet her appearance remains the same. So in these two cases Chikane ideologically represents adultery (sexual perversion) and Himeko chastity, while Haruka represents romantic loyalty and Hayase treachery (another theme is shy vs. outgoing, respectively).
Yang = democracy, Reinhard = autocracy. Appearance in LoGH is interesting because Reinhard is always referred to as “the blonde brat”, more so because the Empire is modeled after, probably, 19th century Prussia. It only makes sense that Prussians look Caucasian. The Free Planets Alliance is more racially diverse. Basically, while LoGH falls into the light/dark hair binary, it is much more “natural” or demanded of by the setting of the anime, whereas the appearance of the girls in KGNE and Kannazuki no Miko have no necessitated connection to their environment other than to emphasize and signify disparate ideology.[3]
hair color predominantly in correlation with personality
ETERNAL gets at this nicely:
This is where I believe conflict lies at the heart of our enjoyment – because conflict, in a love story, is the embodiment of the feelings that the characters share for one another, and these are the feelings that the viewer draws from the story.
She also points out the dissonance between Yuki and Kyo:
Yuki, calm and confident but awkward on the inside; and Kyo, hotheaded and practically tsundere when it comes to his true feelings.
By now it should be evident that tension generates events which drive the show – this is largely if not entirely manifested in the characters.
ETERNAL also says something thought-provoking:
This is where, I believe, conflict comes into play in our rabu-rabu goodness. What would happen if a writer wrote an entire story about the everyday life of a happy couple? It might be interesting, if the writer were a genius, but chances are the plan would backfire and it would be horribly boring…
This is true as well. While her analysis is limited to heterosexual love (I guess that’s what rabu-rabu is), conflict is apparent in homoplatonic sibling love (Sae-Chika), heteroplatonic sibling love (Lelouch-Nunnally), homoplatonic GAR love (Mittermeyer-Reuenthal), hetero-incestuous love (Jun-Noe), homo-incestuous love (uhh, hentai?), lesbianism (Shiznat), and any other funny terminology you can think of.
One thing we haven’t seen yet is the location of conflict. You can have, as was previously stated, conflict within the lead paradigm which is between two lead characters (Renton-Eureka). This type of conflict works from the inside out. You can also have extra-paradigmatic conflict, conflict that comes from a third party with which the lead binary must deal with in unison[4], thus strengthening their bond Renton and Eureka embody this type of conflict towards the end of the anime when they are totally in sync with one another; and this further emphasizes how conflict itself is needed to propel the lead binary – it just depends on the status of the lead binary (is it in tension or harmony?) to “elicit” conflict from a third party (Anemone, the military).
But what happens when there is no conflict involving the lead binary? You could say you end up with slice-of-life, but still, there is conflict in that genre (Hidamari Sketch, Minami-ke, Konata-Kagami). Really, I think that an anime with no conflict reaches a point of stasis. Even an esoteric show like The Diary of Tortov Roddle is probably riddled (sorry, had to) with conflict, albeit in a very confusing and roundabout way. Moreover, rarely is a slice-of-life dominated by a lead binary; but, now that we’ve covered the function of the lead paradigm binary, the next post will deal with larger cast structures and its role in relation to conflict and tension. For now, I leave you with A Graph with which to ponder…
[1] LoGH is a supremely satisfying case because there is little direct contact between Yang and Reinhard. They do contest ideologically as well as indirectly through the long chain of command.
[3] Owen gave me that idea.
[4] There is extra-paradigmatic conflict is dealt with by the lead binary when they themselves are in conflict, Goku-Vegeta is a good example (they often take turns fighting).
10 Comments
Well done. I feel bad however, that my next character post for WRL would be best served by the next post in this series. But I’ll consider the lead binary structure nonetheless.
Could such a structure work for smaller story arcs (relative to overall series length)? In cases where the lead is pitted against a big super-bad (Kenshin vs. Shishio), the antagonist is not technically a ‘lead’ but I wonder if this framework will apply nonetheless.
ghost: that gets into what really constitutes a “character” – one of the more ambitious installments of this series. Discussion on that matter floats around Simon/Kamina a lot – is Kamina there only to propel Simon, himself having no purpose to himself? That changes, I don’t think a character’s “purpose” is so temporally monolithic.
You’re right then, I hadn’t considered non-binary lead paradigms, though I’m not familiar with Kenshin. That is, however, hard to conceptualize…since what constitutes the lead binary is diametric ideological conflict when it is manifested in a character. If you have one half of the ideological conflict manifested, you will end up with the pro or antagonist. If the remaining half is still only in an intangible state (or relatively abstract, i.e. Big Brother, the state, etc.), then that’s when you end up with your kenshin/shishio example. Casshern Sins may be an extremely good example here (write about it?!). Also, the end of TTGL, since its humanity vs. “the spiral nemesis”, just an abstraction, though that’s not really tenable since “humanity” isn’t a character.
reminds me I should read The Wind in the Willows sometime. and oh shat, 3-space!!!
I’m thinking the bigger mystery is when nothing happens in the binary; things just are/exist.
ryana: that is something to think about…off the top of my head, however, conceptualizing conflict-stasis is hard. I can’t picture conflict (which can be manifested in a simple conflict-of-interest – “it’s my juice, not yours!”) not existing to propel a story.
being/existing seems to necessitate relationships too. You exist only in relation to other things, insofar as the social nature of anime takes precedence.
I disagree that having a story about a happily married couple would be boring, my parents have had come to blows over things, at times in spectacular fashion… Let it never be said that married life is boring, from what I have seen being single allows for more time for other things like boredom and WoW…
Besides once you add kids into the mix the couple can be happily married, but kids are something else altogether.
Lastly I don’t think Chikane represented adultery, more like passion. She did love Himeko, though consent was not always asked, but it was ultimately rightly or wrongly (rightly IMHO) obtained.
Excellent food for thought, as always. I especially like the thought of the use of physical attributes to draw attention to psychological/ideological attributes that obviously can’t be seen with the eye.
Also, thanks for the mention! I’m actually a guy lol (my name tends to throw people off, as does my taste in anime…though my picture collection would probably prove otherwise ^^;), but my burning passion for all things related to romance burns strongly nonetheless. I’m glad that my train of thought proved helpful to another aniblogger ^^
Crusader: well it’s not so much about married life as it is conflict – usually married couples have more conflict than lovey-dovey bachelor[ettes].
“She did love Himeko, though consent was not always asked,” – isn’t that precisely what adultery is? Seems like, as you said, passion was indeed the primary emotion, though non-consensual lovin’ must inextricably be adulteration. Innocence plays a big part in a lot of anime, and such innocence is emphasized by the antithetical ideology either explicitly or implicitly. That’s how a lot of meaning is constructed these days anyway. What is freedom without oppression? GAR without moe (i.e. masculinity without femininity)?
ETERNAL: LOL, sorry, I even thought I read in your about that you were a girl…oops. Yeah, your post was exactly what I needed to get this post done, after nearly a month, so I guess I have to indirectly thank Biankita for starting the long train of thought.
There’s no denying what you describe, and that is the reason why I found your post somewhat lacking ; describing the paradigm, as you put it, is a fine task, but far from sufficient in itself : one must remember that this double and contrasting lead remains composed of characters.
Characters, that is to say, exposition, narrative, tools in a story ; more than the basic dichotomy of that lead, evil / good, military / pacifist, fool / thoughful, brawler / chessmaster, to me the interesting part lies in how it is used. If you will, this difference is interesting when it stops being just a static difference and begins to grow into a motif for the show, a force that will drive it.
That is why in my opinion your time / conflict equation is flawed ; the same as in real life, different opinions can resolve in either schism or agreement, whether it be silent or open. But imagine a pacifist and a warmonger ; their conflict will appear almost without meaning unless there is a war ongoing / coming. Hence my point, it is more interesting to study the setting or the narrative and see how it pulls the two characters together / apart, than just stating the basic opposition between them.
“Characters, that is to say, exposition, narrative, tools in a story; more than the basic dichotomy”
Yes, but are all characters that complex? I was under the presumption that, for most anime, we could reduce their instrumentality into a simple dichotomy, since that is their primary and essential function.
“If you will, this difference is interesting when it stops being just a static difference and begins to grow into a motif for the show, a force that will drive it.”
Yes, I cited some examples where difference isn’t static – Kannazuki no Miko and Geass. It’s also interesting because two parallel themes – penitence – actually necessitate change. Penitence is predicated upon sin, so the viewer must first observe the antecedent ideology in order for the consequent ideology to have any sort of effect.
I think that ‘a simple dichotomy’ will always be ‘the force that drives it’, as you say. I think this becomes more complex that what we’re saying here (though I only intended to study characters, not plot! – hence the lacking). Also, this post seems lacking because, as you pointed out, conflict between the lead paradigm is not what drives the show. There can be simultaneous sites of conflict, within “the good guys”, but also conflict that originates from “the bad guys”, so there’s a complexity there. IMHO difference is usually a strong motif, even in DBZ (a relatively trite show, you can agree) remose/regret play a big part, and that is manifested in Vegeta’s pride, the ideology that generates remorse/regret, while Goku, unbound by racial ideology, doesn’t care about the past and is always merciful. Vegeta explicitly mentions this in the final fight against Kid Buu.
“That is why in my opinion your time / conflict equation is flawed”
what is the relationship between time and conflict you are stating (surely time is not divided by conflict?) – in any case, nothing happens instantaneously.
“But imagine a pacifist and a warmonger ; their conflict will appear almost without meaning unless there is a war ongoing / coming.”
I think that such conflict would definitely have meaning, but it would pointless. You’re right though, despite these posts explicitly being about characters, the environment of characters is interesting to analyze. Though I think warmongering in a peaceful setting would very interesting in itself! But, what would you think about the relationship between character and environment? Structural conditions vs. personal agency is a question I always grapple with, and usually the answer is that it is dialectical.
Though I think warmongering in a peaceful setting would very interesting in itself!
Exactly, but differently than it would have been in a setting of war ; hence my point character are tools that hardly stand for themselves. That example is a bit cliché, as you often have that character hell bent on not fighting, until he finds that famous “reason to fight” (like protecting is friend, please no more…) that is given to him by the plot setting. In that case, I think we can say there isn’t even a character per say, just the incarnation of an idea – hence why those “protecting” characters are often such archetype that they become boring, especially since the idea itself is very poor (I mean, talk about a stupid moral choice).
Of course there is an interesting property of animes, compared to other media, in that the characters amount to much more than usual. You can often say an anime is “character driven”, and I often find myself pinning not for the plot, but for character developement. So in a way there is value in studying them alone ; but still, I believe a really great anime will not use only characters as its narrative force.
All in all, I like your posts, I just wish sometimes you were less descriptive and focused more on analysis
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